More Observations

1. appliances are all VERY small. Tiny ovens, tiny stoves, tiny washers and tiny dryers (if you have one at all) a lot of people hang dry the clothes. I have to tell you I have no desire to live that adventurous or simplistic. I DON'T want to hang dry my clothes. I will have a dryer small or not :)

2. my kids are a little lazy when it comes to walking.

3. living in a tiny hotel with 5 people, 15 pieces of luggage and a stroller makes it very hard to keep things clean and children obedient.

4. the water here is surprisingly clean and clear-not clear like the Bahamas but much cleaner and clearer than CA.

5. a kilo is NOT less than a pound like my husband kept assuring me :) Thank Heavens-that means that the fruit is 3-5$ for 2lbs not less than a pound. Silly us!

6. you can sunburn here as easily as I heard. everyone came home with a little pink yesterday.

7. People here are largely very sloppy with their appearance. The business people dress very nice but those walking and doing casually are quite sloppy. I pointed this out to Garrett and he said he started watching people everywhere he went yesterday and he agreed with my observation. the next observation plays a little in with this one.

8. There is little point in fixing your hair here because you walk outside and it blows like crazy until it looks like you didn't do a thing with it.

9. Garrett is not sure he is going to like his job as much as he thought he would--big big disappointment. It is a great job and it is really too early to tell but he feels he might be over qualified. The matte painters here just do matte painting. He is used to taking a piece from the very beginning to the very end. He also does concept art during pre-production when matte paintings aren't needed-BUT here there are multiple projects at the same time so that won't be an option. I will keep you updated with this as it is a critical issue and it will determine largely whether we are here for longer than a year.

10. The bathrooms here all have towel heating racks. Hmm.

Day 3 Wellington NZ

Today Garrett left for work in the morning and I was just a little nervous about taking the kids out by myself. They aren't really wild about walking long distances so I wasn't sure how they would do.

I loaded Ethne in the stroller with the camera and my bag on back and gave Enoch and Ezra their back packs with water bottles, fruit snacks, and a few crayons with one coloring book. I didn't want to overload them for the long walk.

Our first destination was to the bank where I was going to get some cash for the AMEX travelers checks we brought with us that NO ONE takes :) But when we got there I told the lady what I wanted to do and then realized that wasn't going to work out. Garrett was the one who signed them and so he would need to sign them again-darn-no money!

The kids really wanted to go to the water so we walked down to the wharf and then went to find out where Te Papa (the museum) was so we could go the next day when we had some money :) The nice thing is that I feel totally safe here. I wasn't the least bit worried about walking all over with my 3 kids. It seems to be just as we were told-very clean, very safe and with very friendly people. I did get the Mowry tongue from some guy driving like a maniac through downtown though-crazy guy. The other guy-the driver turned a corner and was practically on two wheels.

As we walked along the wharf I was reminded of something-today is our anniversary. Garrett and I have been married 8 years today!
I will let you all in on a little secret about our anniversary. Well two little secrets. 1. this same thing happened last year. Garrett and I woke up one day and it was just like every other day and then I sent him a chat at work that said: Guess what? I just realized that today is our anniversary :(
2. We usually celebrate a lot and do something very special for our anniversary, but we never think-wow I can't believe we have been married for 6, 7, 8 years. Because we have been dating since we were 18. Our relationship started long before we got married. We dated for 4.5 years before we actually were married so our history together will be 13 years next Valentines Day. On Valentines Day 1998 we had been dating a month and we went to Vegas with about 13 people to play and hang out. It was that trip that made Garrett decide he wanted a serious relationship and was finally going to kiss me :) That was the longest any guy had waited before kissing me. I was starting to think he wasn't interested. ;) Anyway-just a little walk down memory lane for our anniversary :)

We went in a little shop to look at carved wood and jewelry made from whale and beef bone-yes I said BEEF bone. Very pretty. We learned about the little Mowry guardian angel-it looks like a sea dragon. They had one on a necklace I am interested in :)

We found the museum and the kids played in the courtyard until the wind picked up and Enoch whined the whole way back about being cold. UNTIL... we found a shopping arcade full of Christmas things and toys. We found Santa sitting in his sleigh and the kids told him what they want for Christmas. They really enjoyed our morning out-besides the wind :)

I checked for messages at the front desk and it seems Garrett was going to be there to pick us up in 8 min which really turned out to be 2min. I had to rush to get them sandwiches for lunch and get them in the car to go meet Ginny (I haven't figured out how she spells her name but the say it Ginny) to go look for housing.

The kids can only handle about 4 houses, and the drives in between, before they start complaining. Luckily we had a break about that point and we took them to get an ice cream cone and play on the beach.

Eating ice cream and playing in the sand was everyones favorite part of the day. It was fun to be together doing something so relaxing. Ethne and I enjoyed the cold water on our feet but everyone else just couldn't get enough of the sand. Very Very Fun!

None of the houses are going to work for us. There were two cute ones but just not what we needed and two that were very yucky and one that was just about perfect--I LOVED IT and so did Garrett. BUT... one of the two bathrooms was just a toilet in a tiny room outside the kitchen in the back yard (kind of). You walk out the back kitchen door and immediately on the right is a door and the toilet is in there. The laundry room is just off of that which is fine. I saw that and went on no-yuck. Then I looked out at the large back yard and it was like heaven-beautiful garden yard- well maintained- interesting and calming. Pretty flowers and shrubs. Then a nagging thought comes into my head and I hear a little voice saying-it won't be like this long- Ezra will happen to it :) Ezra can't help himself. He picks every living thing and explores to the point of destruction. Sweet thing!

Anyway it might have been worth the yucky toilet outside until I saw the only other bathroom in the house and it was just yucky too. The tub (if you can call it that) was just awful in ways I can't really describe.

We went to Pac-n-save (the grocery store) before going home to the hotel. It was about 5:15 when we got in and we made gnochi and veggies for dinner.

we watched a little nature tv with the kids before having scriptures and prayers and putting the kids to bed. These days sure feel long coming from winter and being put right into summer where it doesn't get dark until after 8pm sometime. weird. Aaron how would that work with the fat thing? Is that going to make me more or less fat to have two summers in a row??

Day Two in Wellington, NZ

Today we got up and ate ham and cheese foccacia with plain yogurt (poured out of a carton) with apple cut up in it. That was breakfast.

We got ready for the day and met our ride from Weta whose name escapes me. Garrett says he is too rough and manly to be gay :) He had quite the hangover from the WORK Christmas party on Sat. and from partying the rest of the weekend. The only time he got prickly was when the kids got crazy and Ethne started screaming about not getting to throw around the ipad and he came to my rescue. I think the noise was hurting his head. He is Kind and polite though. Very helpful to me with the kids while G is busy with things.
He is also Garrett's driving instructor today.

We went to the bank first and opened our accounts. 3-checking, savings, and GST for the 15% we get from Weta to pay to the NZ government for working here.

Next we went to Weta where G got all his tax info. and I played outside with the kids after what's his name helped me to take them all outside after the before mentioned incident.

Then we went to lunch with Jenny (our Weta housing specialist)at the Weta cafe/restaurant where we ate a white fish with asparagus and Cherry tomatoes on polenta with a touch of balsamic vinegar and something else... nope can't remember what it was.
The boys had amazingly good pizza with salad and Ethne ate a NZ famous mince pie that would have been my first choice if I could afford those calories :) Jenny ordered a bowl of fries for the kids and the boys all had blood orange soda.

After that we went back to the part of Weta we started at in the morning and we met up with whats his name again. He taught us a few things about driving there and Garrett drove us to our hotel. He was going to drive back with (what's his name)then drive back here to the hotel by himself BUT I have yet to see him yet so I hope he is safe.

K, so Garrett did eventually get home but his instructor had him do something a little out of the ordinary. He had Garrett drive him to the airport and then sent Garrett to find his way home from there. Garrett accidentally ended up on the expressway and had quite the time finding his way back to the hotel. Pretty sure what's his name wasn't supposed to have him do that.

So for the rest of the day I cleaned up the hotel and unpacked and made order out of chaos while Garrett took Enoch and Ezra on a jaunt around town looking for cell phones. We had sandwiches of ham, cheese, tomato, avocado and hummus for dinner and put the kids to bed.

I went over the cell phone plans G brought back and he went through all the paperwork he got at work that day. Then we hit the sack at about 10pm.

Observations Made in The First 24 Hours.

0. The hotel we are living in doesn't have a pool :(

1. Weirdest thing-people run around shopping in their bare feet-lots of them. I found it so odd but Garrett didn't even notice it.

2. it is an odd feeling to be living in a place where you can't tell the gay guys from the straight. They talk the same. They dress the same. I really can't tell a lot of the time. Exception-the cross dressers- those you can tell! Well I can. Garrett is sometimes unsure if they are just really ugly women :)

3. About a 1/3 of the couples walking around yesterday were two men but you couldn't tell for sure if they were "together" or not. Odd. As a married woman this is just an obervation. For single women this must be VERY FRUSTRATING.

4. Fresh produce is VERY expensive (I am hoping it is just the store we were at though).

4.5 The hotel we are at doesn't have a POOL!

5. People are VERY VERY nice. They are so overly concerned for your welfare and so helpful. Even the inflight video said about 3-4 times- in an emergency remember to look around and assist those people who might need help. One of the stuardesses came up to me in the baggage claim area (after helping my new friend Ellie to get everything she needed from the plane up to the bagage etc...) and she gave me her card and told me to call or email her for anything. Even if it was just to ask where to go for something. I was blown away by how kind and polite everyone was at the airport and everywhere else we have been.

6. The food really is as good as people say.

7. On first impression it seems as though everyone here smokes. They don't bother to walk away from children while they do it either. Hard for me as a mother to not be bothered by that. I will need to learn to relax and walk away instead of being prickily I guess.

8. it is beautiful when you look at the country and the hills and the boats and water, but most of the houses and builings leave something to be desired.

I am not sure if this impression or any of the others will last- these are just first impressions and subject to change.

8.5 The hotel we are in DOES NOT have a pool.

9. Housing is going to cost more than we thought :(

First Day in Wellington

Jenny from Weta picked us up at the airport and drove us to the City Life hotel in our rental car. She and Garrett picked up our excess luggage after dropping the rest of us off here at the hotel. Ethne and Ezra had a bath and I took a shower and we all got ready to go out and look for lunch as soon as Garrett would be back. When he got back we walked around to find something to eat but surprisingly enough everything was closed on Sunday. We found a place called Astoria to eat and it was fantastic. Enoch and Ethne had ham, cheese and tomato muffins (they tasted a lot like quiche in muffin form-amazingly good). Garrett had fish with lentils and cucumber, Ezra had a pannini with fancy cheese and I had a steak sandwich. It had great flavor but I remembered why I don't like steak--it's too hard to chew :)

We then stopped in a cafe and had hot chocolate and I used the Internet. Then we took the boys (who were soaking wet from a fountain in front of the cafe we ate lunch at) back to the hotel for clean up. We took naps and then because of our early next day we had to go in search of a shop to buy a few groceries for dinner and breakfast Mon. morning. We walked and walked and then found out the place we were looking for we had already passed so we went back.

Random tip #1: Don't bother bringing travelers checks with you when you come visit. No one takes them anyway.

I was in for a BIG shock at the market. I thought CA was expensive-whew! I nearly fell over when I saw that fresh fruit was all around 4-5 NZ$ per K--I am used to buying what is on sale for around $1-1.50 USD a lb. We live on fresh produce so that is going to be killer.

We had pasta for dinner in our hotel room then put all the kids to bed, cleaned up, I blogged and we went to bed at 10pm our time. A very very full day it was.

Sorry about the poor writing. I have no brain left and no time to re-read and edit this narative.

We Have Arrived!

WOW! It is hard to believe it is finally over. We are in Wellington in our hotel where we will live for the next two weeks while we try to find a place to live. We got to the San Francisco airport Friday at 4:30pm SF time. We hugged our CA grandparents goodbye and checked in. While checking in they said there was a problem with 3 of our 5 visa's and I almost panicked, but the man behind the counter assured me it was OK. They asked us to take a seat and wait while they called the NZ consulate in Los Angeles. We waited for 5 minutes and then we were on our way to security since everything checked out OK. The airport was dead (being the day after Thanksgiving) and security went rather smooth considering the 3 kids, stroller, car seat, 5 large cary-on bags, 6 personal items (we were lucky that went under the radar), camera equipment, computer equipment, ipad, laptop etc. . . They searched two of our carry on bags-one because they thought it had cheese in it-haha (it turned out to be baby wipes in a zip-lock bag. And the other because it has the Drobo in it which looks like it could be a bomb :) Not really. Oh and we realized later then never asked us to pay for the 250$ of extra luggage we checked. Not sure what to do about that.

We had a lot of time to kill when we got to the gate and I took the time to strike up a conversation with a mom of two boys who, as it turns out, did the reverse of what we are doing 6 months ago. She moved from Wellington to Cupertino for her husbands job with Apple. I pulled out the ipad and took notes-yes for real--I am a dork! The lady I met is named Ellie and she is here in Wellington on Holiday for 6 weeks. We plan to get together and her mother, whom I met when we got to our final destination, offered to help me with anything after her daughter had gone. FUN!! Ellie has two boys Charlie (almost 4) and I can't remember the baby's name but he is 9months. Cute kids. Ellie's sister lives near Weta and she was Peter Jackson's nanny and she has 3 kids around my kids ages. I plan to give her a ring on the telly and see if she would like to put the kids in the pram and go get a biscuit or something sometime :)

So the flight was awesome! The kids stayed up late to watch a movie (they all 3 watched something different on their personal screens. Enoch watched "The Rescuers" Ezra watched "Winne the Pooh" and Ethne watched (but didn't listen to) a little of Toy Story 3 until she fell asleep. The boys then ate their dinner and then went right to sleep and slept through the night. They were perfect angels-yes really! Ethne was having a rough time going poo due to the high volume of cheese that passes through her system over the last few days. She woke up at about 3am and was wide awake but very happy. She just talked and played with me and ate some food and then eventually went back to sleep. The kids all slept in until after all the lights had gone on and their trays of food were already waiting for them. Ethne slept even longer. The kids were still being angels at this time but they were starting to get a little grumpy. I got a little grumpy myself when we tried to get through customs and had to sit and wait again while they figured out why Ethne's visa is the only one of the 5 that is only good for 3 months--how did that happen? Anyway we eventually got threw and then got all 10 checked bags and took them through bio-security and got them re-checked and made it on time to our flight from Auckland to Wellington. It went so well that I really couldn't have asked for more-except for maybe a bed and a full nights sleep :)

Well- more tomorrow :)

The Fry Family preparing to move to New Zealand-in 4 minutes and 21 seconds PART 3

WOW!!! By this point Ethne has had a scary feever for 6 days. Mom took her to see a Dr. and they did chest X-ray's etc... but there isn't anything to do for her. She doesn't have pnemona or an ear infection or a bacterial infection. She is absolutely misserable. She is in my arms constantly. She cries and whines all day and I have been so worried about her. Her fever spikes really high and then comes down and then spikes really high again. She won't eat more than a few bites at each meal (if we are lucky)of ANYTHING. Most things she will not touch. She is drinking water like crazy but doesn't really want juice or anything else. She wakes mom and Dad up every hour or two at night and she can't really be consoled.

Enoch, Ezra and Mom all have coughs and congestion and headaches. Last night Ethne woke up and threw up. Mom and dad got it all taken care of and almost got to go to bed but Ezra threw up and they had to start on him. Poor kid didn't think he had thrown up he just thought someone had dumped cat food all over him and the bed. :) It did rather look like hairballs-yuck! Both kids got baths and mom managed to remove all sheets and mattress pad and replace them with Enoch still asleep on his half of the bed.

About once an hour today things fell apart at home.

The Fry Family preparing to move to New Zealand-in 4 minutes and 21 seconds PART 2

mom continues to pack things in boxes. Kids continue to unpack things out of boxes. Mom gets faster out of desperation and tapes things well enough that even Ethne call pull the tape off.

Garrett finishes at IMD and starts to work with mom on moving preparations full time. Mom sighs in relief. We move things to the storage unit in stages take a few more runs to Goodwill and start giving away things like mad.

Visa paperwork gets finished and mailed in by the skin of dad's teeth. Car insurance, registration, renters insurance, shipping insurance, cars, etc... have to be dealt with. The whole family goes shopping for luggage as we have recently decided to take the max. amount we are allowed. 10 checked bags, 5 carry on's and 5 personal items--shoot do we take the violin on the plane? risk shipping? risk checking? Carry on wins out!

Shipping takes a week to figure out and after three companies and packing un-packing and re-packing the 36 boxes are done-labeled on three sides driven to Santa Rosa loaded onto a palate and wrapped up by dad. BIG VICTORY!

Dad is tired and very sore-needs a back massage. Mom needs one too but not as bad as Dad so he wins out and gets the massage. mom and dad are still up really late every night and feel like zombies everyday.

All of this is taking place in a war zone which must be cleaned up to perfection every day to every other day so we can show it to perspective renters and get out of our year contract we signed. Finally with one week left we have rented it. Big Victory!

The last week and a half everyone gets sick again gets well for a few days then gets sick AGAIN. The last day in Petaluma Ethne has been running a high fever off and on for 3 days. She is very sick and only wants to be held by mom which is really stressful and hard. One disaster after another occurs until at 2:45 we check out with landlords-finishing up with them at 3:45 then we have to finish a few things for them. Move a last load to the storage unit, pack up all the luggage, make a run to the city dump, give away things we forgot were in the shed out back to avoid another run to the storage unit, get everyone fed, drive to Cox house to give them gas cans we can't get rid of, close out safety deposit box, and drive to landlords to sign final papers and pick up our copy.

In the last week we have said goodbye to many really close friends and we will miss them terribly as well as all of our family members and other friends who aren't here in Petaluma. We love and miss you guys already. Don't forget us!

Mom takes three tired, crabby, smelly kids to Pablo's for their last time and lets them eat whatever they want. Enoch gets what he always gets-the shrimp burrito. Ezra gets what he always gets (now that he is tired of shrimp burritos). Ethne is too sick to eat but surprises mom by chowing on chips dipped until soggy in the enchilada sauce that Pablo always brings out for the kids. Mom shares the nachos with Ezra but has no appetite and we do what we never do and have horchata's all around. We almost cry as we say goodbye to Pablo and Hector and Pablo's amazing Mexican food.

At 6:30pm we start on our 2 hour drive to Morgan Hill to move in with Grandparents for the last 11 days before we fly out. Ethne is in tears Enoch and Ezra are watching Charlie and Lola in the car and mom wants to cry but is just too exhausted. Ethne hasn't had a nap the entire day, is running a 104 plus fever by the end of the night and has been a complete disaster the entire day. Mom and Dad are dirty, smelly, worn out and out of sorts. Enoch and Ezra are the same but just happy to be watching Charlie and Lola.

Mom prays Ethne will fall asleep and not wake up the whole drive. Enoch and Ezra wake Ethne up a few times but she goes back to sleep. Mom can't stand Dad driving so slow so she flashes her lights at him and he responds by turning on his cell and calling (a signal that has been worked out ahead of time since Dad's phone is almost dead). They have words about driving and dad drives faster-temporarily and finally mom passes him and thinks maybe he will have better luck keeping up with her. He doesn't know she passes him and can't figure out where she is. He calls several times and can't reach her and pulls over to text her. She explains and the keep on going. Mom gets to grandparents before dad and unloads sleepy children to visit with Grandma and stretch their legs until Dad pulls up and we put them to bed.

Stage 2 and 3 complete.

Really this doesn't do the whole experience justice. But I am too tired to think of all the details right now. Maybe I will add some in later on. Just know the whole experience was much much more painful than it sounds :)

Stage 2 and 3 complete.